[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
John W. Kennedy wrote:
Yank has been used as a degoratory term, I believe it started that way. It refers to when "the colonies" *yanked* away from England.
There are several theories as to the origin of "Yankee". That is not one of them. (In fact, it is demonstrably false.)
Interesting. Can you name a few? I'm curious.
Cheers, Daniel.
Well, according to the Wikipedia, regardless of its ambiguous orgin, it is concidered an insult.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee
In other parts of the world
Outside the United States, Yankee, often shortened to Yank, is used as a colloquial term for American. The words are sometimes spelled with a lowercase initial, yankee and yank. In some parts of the world, particularly in Latin America <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America> and East Asia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asia>, yankee or yanqui is meant as an insult and is politically associated with anti-Americanism <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Americanism> and used in expressions such as "Yankee go home." In Japan the term yanqui is used to refer to a youth subculture of bleached blondes who are generally regarded as delinquents and thugs by older generations. Finally, citizens of other countries, including the British during the World Wars, referred to all Americans as Yanks.
-Chad Smith
